CHAPTER FIVE: Luscia
They’d agreed to enter Bastiion after nightfall.
When Marek suggested they employ a concealed advantage in the relatively unknown environment, Luscia had readily approved. She concurred that in a city where men with pale faces, light eyes, and fair hair were not welcomed anymore, darkness would reduce the risk of an unexpected confrontation.
She’d chosen to make use of their pausing to privately redress and mentally prepare. Fastening the clasps along the front of her surcoat, Luscia tried to control her restlessness. Trembling fingers brushed the line of fabric toward her collar to straighten it, pulling the material higher to hide the faded scar marring her porcelain neck. Given enough time, Boreali skin could heal from almost any wound—except for an encounter with luxiron.
She stared blankly into the dimming forest as her thumb traced the raised tissue that painted a jagged line from her left earlobe to her clavicle. Branding her skin, it served as a daily reminder of humanity’s nature, etched by the very consort dagger strapped against her thigh, adjacent to its mate riding the other. She’d left Bastiion six years ago as a joyfully innocent, brave little girl. Returning now as a hardened woman, Luscia vowed to honor that little girl’s memory in any way she could.
But tonight was not about the past, she resolved, standing under the moon’s increasing glow. Tonight was the beginning of what was to come: the age of Dmitri Thoarne.
For this reason, Luscia had selected her attire with great intention, choosing a piece normally reserved for ceremonial combat. She’d last worn the garment during her final evaluation on the Isle of Viridis. Paired with a sleeved vest, the indigo skirt split in four places to allow a woman’s full range of motion and hung low atop thin, black linsilk breeches. Trimmed in a radiant labyrinth of silver needlework, it boasted Boreal’s interpretation of war. Her brethren were a people of balance, who executed every practice with disciplined elegance. A people who gave each stitch the precision of a tempered blade.
Uncovering a shard of grey kohl, she lined her eyes in a darkened intimidation the najjan saved for ceremony, and for battle. She had one chance to make a memorable entrance, and despite her racing heart, Luscia planned to enter Bastiion as a warrior. Gingerly, Luscia felt for the warm metal tickling her nose.
At the sound of rustling leaves, she spun to see Aksel padding into the small meadow, his tongue dangling lazily from a mouthful of serrated teeth and sharp canines. Trotting toward Luscia, he slowed to press heavily against her side in a passing hello. Her fingertips trailed across his back as he rounded her frame.
She dropped her other hand from its fiddling, releasing the tiny, crescent shard of luxiron piercing her septum. The solrahs was a concrete, indisputable declaration of her station in Boreali society. Upon her Ascension, she’d undergone the bestowing like all Boreali haidrens, including Alora. Even though Luscia had waited eighteen years to receive it, her skin was still adjusting to such intimacy with the living metal, warm against her nose.
Luscia gathered her small handful of belongings, buckled her kuerre at her waist, and headed toward the tree line to join her men. When she noticed the absence of four paws, she looked back to find the lycran patiently sitting where she’d left him.
Blasted beast, Luscia cursed.
“I’m leaving with or without you,” she stated, continuing forward.
She heard a mass hit the earth and turned to see Aksel’s reclining outline among the tall grasses. His unblinking, glowing eyes fixated on where she stood at the edge of the clearing. With a quick yip, Aksel tilted his head and lowered it stubbornly over his outstretched legs.
“Really? You think now is a good time for this?”
Luscia knew what the lycran waited for. It was what they were all waiting for.
Pure Tiergan blood offered the haidrens to Boreal the sacred ability to experience what others could not. These higher gifts empowered their ascended haidrens to hear and feel things not of this world, but of the hidden existing in and around it. That gifting manifested in various forms, but Luscia had deliberately postponed exploring them. She’d avoided attempting her initial Sight, the first sign of true Tiergan lineage, since the evening of her eighteenth birthday.
A vacancy or disturbance in the higher gifts was unacceptable in Boreal’s next spirit leader. Therefore, failing the Sight would only confirm Luscia’s silent fears—an uncertainty of self which could never be spoken aloud. Luscia feared something she could not endure. Something she’d witnessed Eoine, her late mother, bear until the day she disappeared. Her magical, tormented, beautiful, and strange mother.
Luscia stifled the thought of her. Now wasn’t the time to linger on such fears.
She regarded the unwavering lycran across the empty clearing. The wolx was right—she’d waited long enough, and time was running out. Submitting to the inevitable, Luscia closed her eyes and remembered Alora’s instructions. She imagined reaching past the blackness and felt for what her aunt described as a feather brushing the mind.
After a few absent heartbeats, Luscia’s eyes began to water. She lifted her face upright, refusing the outpouring of emotion. Keeping her eyes pressed shut, Luscia inaudibly begged, “Bolaeva. Bolaeva, Aniell, please let me see.”
A spark, then another, tingled up her spine and traveled down her arms. As with a tether, she tried to reach out and pull. Reopening her eyes, Luscia willed herself to see beyond the veil that masked the unseen.
In a flash of light, there they were.
Faint but present, as expected so far from the source, glittering threads of lumin danced with the breeze. The light energy snaked about her body and floated toward the night sky. Fleeting traces of it awoke in the striation of the nearest tree bark, the swaying blades of grass, even Aksel’s coat. Luscia’s breath caught at the beauty of the living luminescence. Hesitantly, she raised her forefinger toward a branch of leaves. The iridescent veining brightened at her touch, as if greeting an old friend.
The undiluted lumin, no longer sleeping in her Tiergan blood, pulsed beneath her skin. A nearly euphoric sensation lifted her upright, intensifying throughout her body. It was an awareness unlike any other. And though her Sight was gone with the next blink, she felt a magnetism to the threads as she hadn’t before.
Alora promised that once the veil was removed, it would never return. Thus, in its exodus, Luscia released all doubt, finally believing the potency of her inheritance.
“Tadöm, Aniell. Se’lah Aurynth,” she whispered in a prayer of gratitude.
Suddenly a sharp, burning pain seared through her temples. Crying out, Luscia collapsed. Aksel ran to her side and with a wet muzzle, shoved her satchel toward her fingers. Gasping, she searched frantically for one of Alora’s glass vials and swallowed the prescribed tonic in a panic. Then Luscia cradled her head in her hands, pleading for the familiar pain to dissipate.
Disappointment drowned her agony. She’d taken her most recent dose just a few nights ago; it was far too soon for her to need another. Forcing herself off the ground, Luscia prayed for relief and quickly grabbed her things. She shook with remnant throbbing, but made way toward where her najjan had assembled at the overlook, just a short walk through the trees.
Reaching their position, Luscia proceeded to one of the pack horses and stored her things inside a woven case. Head aching, she barely registered the clearing of a throat behind her at first, but when she turned around, all five men were staring at her in silence.
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“Wem?” Luscia demanded, before noticing the collective pattern their gazes traced about her figure. Luscia may have chosen that particular surcoat for two reasons, for it fit rather well, and no one ever achieved anything by dressing like a sack of produce.
“Ana’Sere, you look…” Declan began, trailing off in consideration.
“Vicious!”
“And enticing!”
The pair of animated blondes nodded in unison. Marek grumbled something between Böwen and Creyvan, and their eyes doubled in size.
“I was going to say formidable, but I think their outburst will suffice,” Declan finished with a stiff nod, then returned to his horse.
Mounting her mare in a swinging vault, Luscia caught the grimace Marek gave the others. The captaen held his stern expression a moment longer to be certain some wordless message was understood before climbing into the saddle. Whatever it entailed, Luscia didn’t think Noxolo registered it, as he stalked in front of them and grinned at her with genuine regard.
Neither did Marek, by the way his brows merged in renewed aggravation with the alabaster najjan. Tugging up the hood of his emerald cloak to hide the striking hue of his scarlet hair, Marek walked his horse beside Luscia’s mare. Starlight shone on his face when he leaned closer, highlighting the bristling along his jawline.
Marek’s unease was evident as he spoke in a low voice. “You dress as if we ride into battle, Luscia.”
She ignored his informality and settled her gaze on the city of Bastiion, alight in the distance below. “Aren’t we?” Luscia asked with conviction.
Marek studied her, as if he could sense the remnant pain within her skull. “Something’s changed. Ana’Sere, are you all right?”
Her stomach tightened. His al’haidren should not be so frail, so susceptible to ordinary affliction. The lumin in her blood should have risen above the episode, especially after its awakening. Luscia’s brethren needed to see the al’haidren they believed in: anointed, resilient, whole.
Luscia evaded the captaen’s scrutiny and shifted to address her men. “As discussed, we will hug the shoreline along the Vasil and enter the proper at the northwest gate. Marketown does not slumber in the night, but rather wakens, so be on your guard. The streets should be quiet along the docks, which is why your captaen and I have selected this route.
“My brödre, I know you are tired, but our journey has just begun. We have spent the past two weeks sleeping in the dirt for this night. We will not waste it, like the Unitarians waste their coin. We will not misuse our potential, as the Pilarese misuse their pulpits. And we will not forget our calling, like the Darakaians have forgotten their own.” Inclining her head to them, Luscia added, “Se’lah Aurynth.”
Finishing the hallowed proverb with one voice, they professed, “Rul’Aniell.”
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As their horses’ hooves trotted through the city’s streets, paved in interesting patterns of old and new-world stone, an anthem of mismatched notes filled the air to announce Luscia’s arrival in Bastiion. Arrival to a life where whimsy could have no reign; just the remote stillness of reason and resolution. To prevail, to protect the sacred, Luscia needed to bind whimsy away, along with her longing to run back to the land of mist and myth.
It was the smell which first met Luscia when passing into the proper. Inhaling shallowly, she tried to rationalize that an entire civilization couldn’t possibly stink of rotting fish, and that by traveling along the west docks, they’d invited the stench. Choosing this route had been wise, considering the port was essentially unoccupied. Perhaps trade simply didn’t occur on the west side the bay.
While the other corners of Bastiion corralled her inhabitants, the inner walls appeared less guarded than Luscia remembered. However, her prior visit had been contingent upon the judgment of Emiere, the captaen of Alora’s guard. He’d brought them through the extremely fortified southern gate, which served as Bastiion’s formal entrance.
Even still, she considered, only foolish yancies would leave such a weakness in the palace’s defenses, vacant ports aside.
“Noxolo, I swear if that reek is coming from you, I’m going to shove kheflre root down your throat to finally clear you out,” Declan swore through a clamped jaw.
“We’re riding beside fishing vessels. Don’t fault me for what we all must suffer,” Nox shot over a shoulder at the ginger najjan’s implication.
“I wasn’t sleeping next to a fishing vessel for the last two weeks!” Declan barked. “Enough.”
Though her rebuke was but a whisper, each man immediately lowered his chin and murmured an apologetic, “Meh fyreon, Ana’Sere.”
Luscia forced her body into a posture of poise as they approached the palace gates. The evening merriment bathed the heart of Bastiion in a gluttonous glow. Tall spires threatened to pierce the underbelly of the black sky, each crowned with a shining, domed cupola and positioned at alternating heights around the exterior of the palace, like giant torches dotting a grand temple. The hazy warmth painted the structure in a shimmering polish, showcasing a glorious medley of quartz, limestone, and byrnnzite. An organic composite of petrified ash, wood, and old-world metallics, byrnnzite was a testament of Orynthia’s recovery after the land’s immeasurable destruction.
Bastiion’s most precious jewel: the palace that had sheltered the line of Thoarne for nearly five hundred years. And Luscia’s new home.
Marek trotted ahead to speak with the handful of royal sentries grouped behind the western gate to the royal grounds. Luscia straightened to her full height as they silently weighed her features against his words. After a few hushed directions and a clipped argument over the colossal wolx tracing her steps, two high-ranking officials escorted their company to the guest stables. With seeming reluctance, a sentry expressed in rushed Unitarian that a row of stalls had already been prepared for the al’haidren’s party.
Upon entering, a slew of stablemen dashed from the halls and began removing their gear from the pack horses. Luscia dismounted and searched for her captaen’s face in the shuffle.
“Marek, my things,” was her only directive before an emerald cloak whirled to delegate the relocation of her possessions. She spoke a faint “tadöm” without looking his way again, knowing that Marek’s Northern ears would hear her thanks above the clamor.
A stable boy with stunning ocher skin guided her mare into a nearby stall. Luscia was about to relay the horse’s tendency to kick strangers when she heard a loud crash from the stables across the pathway. Another team of attendants ran in the direction of the commotion, only to result in further shouting.
When Luscia asked the boy if everything was all right, his eyes widened with genuine terror as he exclaimed, “That Andwele stallion is from the Depths! He injured two hands just this week.” In fluent Unitarian, she hurriedly offered her condolences and gave an emphatic warning about her own mare’s temperament.
Exiting the stall, Luscia froze.
At the stable entrance, her kinsmen held a defensive formation around an imposing man outfitted in Orynthian military garb. His belted navy tunic was embellished with enough bronze to discern his station was one of great significance. But it wasn’t the man’s livery, his stance, or the outfit of sentries at his back that had put her najjan on edge. It was the expression he wore.
The man turned his sour grin toward Luscia, but his feigned pleasantry didn’t extend above the lower half of his face, battered and dark, like burnt cacao. The skin around his eyes tensed combatively as he addressed her guard.
“I am Commander Kasim, haidren to Darakai. Your presence will be tolerated in Bastiion, but that tolerance does not extend to your weaponry. Because of Boreal’s greed, the Peerage has decided that it is unsafe to permit your witchiron on the royal grounds. Therefore, abiding by this new legislation, it will now be confiscated.”
The commander’s excuse for a smile broadened at their troubled silence. Though they held their position, Luscia could feel the najjan watching her reaction to the Darakaian’s instruction in their periphery. Her men would mirror their al’haidren in this initial test of her character, even if the commander refused to acknowledge her directly.
Not for the first time, Luscia wished her father hadn’t sheltered her so thoroughly from Bastiion. For unbeknownst to her, this new legislation could be completely valid, and she was here to keep the peace between Boreal and the rest of Orynthia. So, though it chafed her to comply, Luscia reluctantly removed the sheathed kuerre from her side. As she set it on the ground, Luscia kept herself from glancing at the set of carved bone riding her knuckles, or from betraying any hint of the consort daggers hidden beneath her surcoat.
“I knew you’d understand,” the commander said smugly. “Place the witchiron in this cart, and General Lateef will see that your contraband is locked away.” He motioned to his right, where another mature Darakaian stood beside a small wagon draped in tarp.
“And to ensure the proper handling of najjani craftsmanship, one of my men will accompany him,” Luscia interjected, keeping her voice steady and pleasant. The commander jerked at the sound, finally turning his head in her direction. “He will bear witness as the general delivers the key to the compartment into royal hands. For as you stated, Commander, taking my property is for the safety of us all, is it not?”
Commander Kasim’s eyes targeted hers. Black and unfeeling, they seemed empty before abruptly flashing with the embers of a dying fire. “You see, men?” he scoffed mockingly. “When asked nicely, even an unbroken, feral y’siti can manage civility.”
Marek and Böwen launched to restrain Declan in his fury. Noxolo tried to soothe Aksel’s snarling, for even the lycran, a wild wolx, understood the realm’s favored slur for the Boreali.
Y’siti. Filthy ice-witch. A label both unclean and debased.
The commander’s grin morphed into a wicked sneer when Luscia’s hand flew up in a silent command, stilling her small army.
“Or maybe they can’t,” he spat before marching out the open door.
Luscia waited until the commander disappeared on his path to the palace before her lips moved for her men’s incensed ears, breaking the hush.
“Welcome, my brödre, to the House of Bastiion.”
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